Conventionally, there has been known a vehicular steering apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 2006-224750. This conventional vehicular steering apparatus includes a lane-keeping-assist control section which detects a lane of a road on which a vehicle travels and automatically controls the steering of the vehicle so as to cause the vehicle to travel along the lane; and a yaw-rate-reaction-force control section which controls the steering reaction in accordance with the yaw rate of the vehicle. When the vehicular steering apparatus switches its operation mode from a normal control mode in which the yaw-rate-reaction-force control section is operated to a lane-keeping-assist control mode in which the lane-keeping-assist control section is operated, the vehicular steering apparatus switches its operation mode via a transition mode in order not to impart an unnatural steering sensation to a driver. In this transition mode, the vehicular steering apparatus gradually reduces, with elapse of time, a yaw-rate-reaction-force target current output from the yaw-rate reaction force control section, and gradually increases, with elapse of time, a lane-keeping-assist target current output from the lane-keeping-assist control section.
Further, there has been conventionally known a vehicular steering apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (koka!) No. H6-206564. This conventional vehicular steering apparatus includes control changeover means for mitigating a shock which is generated in the vehicle when its operation is switched between a state feedback control for controlling a yaw rate generated in the vehicle when the front wheels are steered such that the yaw rate coincides with a target value and another, second control. This control changeover means restricts, to a smaller value, the maximum value of change in the controlled variable when the control is switched.